Free Black Sun Rising by C.S. Friedman Page B

though they still held onto him. “I’ll teach’em what it means, to break contract with me!”
    The two men—dockhands, recruited by the Port Authority in order to avoid outright murder on the piers—held tightly to his arms, while the shallow-hulled shipping vessel that was the subject of his invectives settled itself into position. A bevy of dockworkers moved in quickly and made her fast in record time. And then the gangplank was set in place and the ship’s first mate, a young and rather lanky man, trekked the length of the pier toward where they stood. And the men let Jarrom go, which was good for them. Because in another few minutes he would surely have spouted fire and burned his way free of them, if they’d continued to hold onto him.
    “Vulkin‘ bastards!” His face was red with rage, his shaking hands clenched into fists. “Vulkin’ incompetants! Where you been, with my cargo? Where’s your coward-ass captain, who lied to make contract?”
    The first mate didn’t look directly at him, but at his own feet. “Give me a minute, sir, and I’ll try to explain—”
    Jarrom snorted derisively. “Give you a minute? I’ll give you my fist! I don’t have to waste my precious time talking to a lackey! Where’s your captain, boy? Or that damned best-eye-in-the-eastrealm pilot he’s so vulkin‘ proud of? Bring those men out, and then we’ll talk!” When the young man didn’t answer him immediately, he added, “Two of Prima’s months, boy—that’s how long he said it would take. Two lesser months, come hell or white water or smashers from Novatlantis. And how long has it been, I ask you? A good three shortmonths, going on four—and my buyers threatening to blow my whole business to hell—so where the vulk have you been?”
    In a carefully measured voice, the young man said, “It’s a dangerous route, Mer Jarrom. You know that. Orrin’s a damned good captain, and Jafe was as good a pilot as Erna’s ever seen. It’s still a nightmare of a trip, and you knew that when you hired us. Knew we might not make it at all, contract or no contract.” His voice faded away to a whisper. “Almost didn’t. Gods help us.”
    “That’s through no fault of mine—eh? No big storms this way, no smashers out of the east, a small quake down south but that’d barely shake the waters, so what—” It struck him suddenly what the first mate had said. “What the hell do you mean, was? You lose a pilot, boy? Is that your excuse? Jafe Saccharat die on route?”
    The first mate raised his head, and met Jarrom’s eyes at last. And Jarrom nearly took a step backward from the force of that gaze. He was a strong man, to be sure, and brave in the way that the strong can afford to be brave; he had seen his share of dockside violence and come out on top of most of it, had even wrestled a succubus once and not had his life sucked out in the process—which was as close to victory as anyone ever got with that kind. But though none of those situations had ever made him really afraid, the look in the boy’s eyes was enough to make his blood run cold. Bloodshot orbs stared out from a pale, hollowed face, underscored by purple crescents dark enough that they might have been bruises ... but that wasn’t what shook him up so. A dozen men a day looked that bad, dockside, and Jarrom neither pitied nor feared them. No. It was something else that took him off guard, which he’d never seen before, not in man or demonling, or even dockhand. Not something in the first mate’s eyes, exactly. Perhaps ... something absent?
    “Not dead,” young man muttered. “The pilot’s alive. They’re all— we’re all—alive. I suppose.”
    “You’d better explain yourself,” Jarrom warned. But the fire was out of his voice now, he could hear it. What had happened? What could happen, to put that look in a man’s eyes?
    “It’s a dangerous route,” the first mate repeated. Empty of emotion, as if the explanation had been rehearsed so